The United States Department of Transport, the United States Customs and the United States Office for Homeland Security have initiated a Safe and Secure Trading Lanes program: US authorities (a) would like to assert that containers reaching the United States have not been tampered with during their voyage to the United States, (b) would like to establish a complete chain of responsibility from the manufacturer of the goods all the way to the consumer of the transported goods, and (c) would like to assert that cargo/containers have traveled on approved—which means secure and safe—trade lanes only.
While there are already systems available providing electronic container seals—also called e-seals—there are currently no systems available that address the whole problem. The intuitive solution of equipping containers with GPS receivers and storing a continuous track of GPS reading with each container does not work across all possible means of transport: Container ships, for example, regularly have containers stacked ten to twelve levels high with a similar width where only the uppermost GPS receivers would obtain a signal.
There are some documents found in literature dealing with different concepts of container seals:
“Report on Electronic Container Seal Technologies (Task 2)”, Chel Stromgren, Aug. 23, 2002, retrieved and accessed on the Internet
http://www.ccdott.org/Deliverables/2001/task3.15/task3.15_Summary.pdf on Oct. 1, 2003, describes the technical development of container seals: Starting with passive seals having no power support, today electronic seal are common. An electronic seal is understood in the Stromgren document as a tamper-indicating and identification device which records unauthorized opening of either the doors or the latches that secure the doors on a container. Such electronic seals provide an electronic identification that can be queried during the shipping process and are designed to create a record of any tampering event in-transit. There is a differentiation between indicative seals which indicate tampering events and barrier seals which combine the functions of a seal and a lock. There are active electronic seals which provide an internal power supply and there are passive electronic seals which rely on power provided by external sources.
According to the Stromgren document, querying data from such an electronic seal can be achieved in an interrogating way. Alternatively, the seal can transmit data at periodic intervals. Data that can be stored in an electronic seal are e.g. a cargo manifest or sensor data. An emerging electronic seal technology is introduced in which the electronic seal comprises GPS capabilities for recording a history of the movement path in the electronic seal.
“Technology to Enhance Freight Transportation Security and Productivity”, Michael Wolfe, Intermodal Freight Security and Technology Workshop—Long Beach Calif., Apr. 27-29, 2002, retrieved and accessed on the Internet
http://ops.fhwa.dot.gov/freight/publications/Security %20Technology %20Appendix,%204-25-02.doc on Jul. 17, 2003 haves a similar overview on seal technologies.
WO 03/007221 A2 introduces an electronic seal based on RFID tag technology.
“Hi-G-Tek”, retrieved and accessed on the Internet http://www.higtek.com/cargo.htm on Oct. 6, 2003 introduces commercial electronic seals. Information regarding cargo is written onto an electronic seal by a handheld terminal. During use, a monitoring device mounted on the cab of a truck interrogates the electronic seal at predetermined time intervals which seal transmits back its identity and status. This data is forwarded to a central control center.
It is a desire to have a concept available that supports documenting security related aspects in the process of container shipping.